Lazy Sunday (And a Lazy Blogger!)

Hmm, I see it has been three weeks since I updated this blog. I could (legitimately) tell you about how busy we've been with special meeting visitors (wonderful, as usual) and Evan's work schedule and Cheyenne having Easter break. The truth is, though, that I've just re-discovered reading books in great big gulps. So lately, instead of sitting down on my computer of an evening to blog, I keep turning pages in my book! My house has suffered somewhat, but I'm enjoying it.

We had a great Sunday afternoon. After a beautiful nap (on my part!), we did all sorts of fun stuff. Evan did a puzzle, and Rilla noshed on banana bread.

Elliott colored cutely!

Cheyenne, hard at work coloring, too!

I downloaded this coloring page from a coloring contest on Secret Agent Josephine's website. The kids always like coloring the pages she makes!

Cheyenne wanted to wear this "flower girl dress" from her cousin Katie today. We had to compromise with a long sleeve shirt under it, since it is still fairly cool.

Not as bad as this, two weeks ago! This is a very forlorn April Tricycle.

Rilla playing outside, seeking to liberate her toes.

Success!

Cheyenne posing. She's getting so big-- I went to pick her up the other day, and I couldn't believe it-- her feet hit my knees when I held her! She's reading a lot of words now, and she loves to "read" aloud to me for HOURS every day! Thankfully, as long as I'm in the room, she's satisfied that I'm listening, and I can go about my business.

I love the look of French braids-- and it's the only way Cheyenne's hair stays in all day.

Aunt Lindsey was here for about 45 minutes one Saturday night. She was on her way up to Vaughans', prepatory to flying to Italy with Olivia and Tori! We loved seeing her so much, we played hooky from Cheyenne's school Wednesday and Thursday and went up to see her at the farm.

Elliott couldn't bear to go to sleep without Olivia in the room, so he fell asleep on her lap while we played games. (We were playing Rummy, I think. We also played lots of Wordthief, of course!)

I didn't take a lot of pictures while I was up there, but I did take my camera along on a trip to the barn to see the animals. Walking into the milkhouse still has so many memories attached to it. Funny to imagine all the hours I spent in there (and no cracks from my siblings on that!) and now it's just empty.

There were lots of sheep in the barn.

I love the little multi-colored lambs. Their father is Amazing Grace Abner, a Jacob's ram, so that's where their "ring-straked" appearance comes from.

It will definitely be more fun to photograph the lambs when they're gamboling about on the green grass in the sunlight!

Elliott giving Olivia a prolonged good-bye hug. He sure likes his Aunt Olivia!

We've been enjoying the "birdfeeder" in our front yard-- the fruit left on the branches of our decorative crabapple tree. There are usually 5-10 of these birds in it at any time. (I'm clueless about birds and too lazy to look it up tonight. It has a great band of bright yellow on the bottom of its tail!) I have tried to get more pictures, but I'm afraid my zoom lens isn't working right-- couldn't get it to focus, either on autofocus or manually. Not good.

Evan recently placed #3 in the highly competitive and elite contest hosted by Eric Pikcilingis. Here the kids are with the loot!

Their favorite was the marshmallow gun!

The mighty huntress!

And you can eat the ammo!

Evan actually oversaw Elliott's first experience with a gun! Here we've been thinking that would be Uncle Justin or Uncle Owen's job... just had to get the right kind of gun, and Evan's there!

Evan took Cheyenne and Elliott over to Dana and Marilyn's for the night a few weeks back when he had an estimate to do over that direction. I promptly decided to move all the furniture around in our living room! Cheyenne was glad to pose in my pictures of the new arrangement...

I took some doors off the top of this bookcase. I think they were originally supposed to hide the TV, but that's not a big issue here. Now there are lots of BOOKS, and who wants to hide books?

This isn't any different arrangement, I just love baking in a clean kitchen. I had a Pie Epiphany a couple weeks ago, so I've been enjoying making pies! (I finally figured out how to roll out the dough-- not sure why it took me so long!)

Miss Marilla perched on the counter.

If you think she doesn't have the world's most gorgeous eyes, you must be blind. (For all their full glory, click on the picture to take you to a bigger picture.)

Spring Beauties

This was a bouquet of flowers Cheyenne bought for Grandma Marilyn's birthday. They are probably grown in Ecuador or something, but it was nice to have springy things around anyway we could!

I had fun taking pictures of the blooms!

Then I had to start taking pictures of Marilla next to them.

Squatting beside the flowers, firmly holding her new sippy cup. She loves the cup, even though she doesn't swallow all that she sips-- the front of her shirts are usually pretty milky at the end!

Look at the curve of that cheek!

Then she started making silly faces...

She's good at it!

We were SO happy to go pick up Daddy at the airport last week!

Rilla sure remembered Daddy-- she clung to him like a little burr for a few days!

Elliott drinking his last bottle, not that I'd warned him of this!

The dentist had said he really needed to ditch the bottle, so I waited until after Daddy had been home a day. I thought it would be traumatic, and figured we wouldn't pile the trauma of No Daddy on top of the trauma of No Bottle. He actually has done really well with it, though. He had been down to just a bottle at bedtime, occasionally a bottle in the afternoon at nap time. I thought that one bottle was pretty entrenched, but he's only asked for one a couple times since, and he takes a "no" very calmly. Big kid!

He also got a big boy haircut Friday night.

I hate it, but it will hopefully grow back! It looks adorable from the back, but he has such a high forehead he needs some hair hanging over it. Not to mention the very light color of his hair, and his sticky-out ears. I do love to rub this hairstyle, though! I gave him his haircut, and while I don't like how he looks in it, I'm proud that I got the haircut technically correct. There have been a few haircut trials on my husband and brothers that didn't always pan out so well!

Elliott is still obsessed with cars. I brought this rug, which usually lives in the family room, up to the living room this week. Big mistake. Any time I walked from the living room to kitchen, I'd hear, "Don't step on my rug! You step on gas station, Mommy!" Very indignant little boy.

Happiness is... lots of cars.

Neatly parked cars, no less!

They even go outside with him when the weather is nice.

Rilla loves climbing up on the big kids picnic table.

Cheyenne, in her "clompy" shoes, being a basketball girl. (She's obviously never watched a game, or she'd be wearing sneakers, but she loves the noise those shoes make on the wooden deck.) The Syracuse Orange were in the Sweet Sixteen playoffs, so it was all she heard about in school. When she came home that Friday afternoon, everything was Syracuse!

We are having a rainy Sunday. We have had amazing (and rare) sunshine and warmth lately! It is wonderful for the kids to be able to play outside so much. Today, though, we're enjoying our lazy Sunday, and it doesn't matter what is happening outside!